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RENK, South Sudan: As a young man in the mid-1980s, Daud Mahmoud Abdullah left his home in Aweil in South Sudan and headed north. It was a time of war. South Sudan was still part of Sudan and was fighting for independence, in a conflict that would claim about 2 million lives.

He never went back. But now, aged 60 and after 6 months in a Sudanese prison, he is closer to home than he’s been in 40 years. This July, he finally crossed the border back into his native South Sudan, taking a deep breath and reminding himself, “I am alive.”

After everything that has happened to him, it feels like a miracle.

Sudan – once his place of refuge – has been embroiled in a brutal civil war since April 2023 that has killed 40,000 people and displaced nearly 13 million more, according to UN agencies.

Abdullah lived in the town of Wad Madani, capital of Al-Jazirah State, about 135km south of Khartoum. There had been incursions into the area by the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary force once known as the Janjaweed who were notorious for mass killings, rapes and other atrocities in Darfur two decades ago. More recently, the RSF have again been accused of by the International Criminal Court of committing war crimes, including the attacks on famine-hit Zamzam and other camps in North Darfur.

In January, the Sudanese Armed Forces began recapturing parts of Al-Jazirah state from the RSF – and making sweeping arrests. Abdullah got caught up in the incursions on his way home from the market: he was picked up by SAF soldiers and accused of cooperating with the RSF.

Abdullah says that he was “beaten, tortured and burned with cigarettes” to make him confess. Although he never made a confession, he was thrown in prison.

Held without charge and tortured in prison

In a report released in March, the top UN human rights body detailed how both the SAF and the RSF have detained tens of thousands of people “without charge, with limited or no contact with their families, in squalid and overcrowded facilities” in “a widespread pattern of arbitrary detention, torture, and ill-treatment.”

Abdullah can attest to this. He remembers inmates dying from starvation, beatings or illnesses like cholera on a daily basis. One morning, he discovered that 28 of his fellow inmates had died in the night. For the next three days the bodies lay inside his cell, and the soldiers refused to remove them. “Even when you shouted to them,” said Abdullah, “they would tell you, ‘if you want to die also, you can die with them.’”

The Associated Press spoke to eight men in total, some of whom were detained in other prisons in Al-Jazirah State and Khartoum. All recounted nightmarish conditions during their incarceration. They described being crammed into cells alongside hundreds of other prisoners.

Cells were so crowded that they were forced to sleep with their knees tucked under their chin. Beatings occurred regularly; one said he lost the use of his right eye as a result.

One man, Michael Deng Dut, 29, said he had been “tortured with electricity more than 18 times.” Simon Tong, 39, said that he was tortured with a knife during an interrogation, and rolled up his sleeve to expose the scars on his arm.

Many of the men said they were given only a handful of food and a small cup of water once a day. “This is the reason many of us passed away,” said Tong, “because of the lack of food and water.”

A place between north and south

In July, 99 South Sudanese prisoners were separated from the other inmates. As the men awaited their fate, one died, reducing their number to 98. On July 28, they were bundled into a bus and driven away, not knowing where they were going.

“They did not tell us they were going to release us,” says Abdullah.

He didn’t realize where he was until they reached the South Sudanese border and were taken to Renk, the country’s northernmost town, by South Sudanese officials. Though still far from home, Abdullah was back in his own country for the first time in 40 years.

The border town of Renk has become a hub for South Sudanese nationals trying to get home. When the Sudanese civil war broke out in 2023, UN agencies and the South Sudanese government established an onward transportation program which has moved more than 250,000 people, according to the UN’s International Office of Migration.

On June 1, 2025, the program was suspended due to global cuts to humanitarian funding. The number of people living in and around a transit center in Renk has since swelled to 12,000, roughly six times its intended capacity. Thousands are living in makeshift shelters made of sticks and cloth.

Reunited but stranded

But for Abdullah, arriving in Renk was a moment of overwhelming joy after months of torture and uncertainty. He was overcome to see his wife, daughter, and younger brother waiting for him. His wife had decided to take his family south after his younger brother had been arrested and released by SAF for the third time.

“When I saw Abdullah, I thanked God,” she said. “We did not expect to see him alive again.”

Abdullah now hopes to return to Aweil, the town where he was born. He still has family in Sudan, and is trying to contact them so that they might join him in Renk.

“If they come back safely, then we plan to go to Aweil,” he said. “All of us, together.”

LIMASSOL: After setting off from Cyprus, a ship loaded with 1,200 tonnes of food supplies for the Gaza Strip was approaching the Israeli port of Ashdod on Tuesday in a renewed effort to alleviate the worsening crisis as famine threatens the Palestinian territory.

The Panamanian-flagged vessel is loaded with 52 containers carrying food aid such as pasta, rice, baby food and canned goods. Israeli customs officials had screened the aid at the Cypriot port of Limassol from where the ship departed on Monday.

Some 700 tonnes of the aid is from Cyprus, purchased with money donated by the United Arab Emirates to the so-called Amalthea Fund, set up last year for donors to help with seaborne aid. The rest comes from Italy, the Maltese government, a Catholic religious order in Malta and the Kuwaiti nongovernmental organization Al Salam Association.

“The situation is beyond dire,” Cyprus Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos told The Associated Press.

Cyprus was the staging area last year for 22,000 tonnes of aid deliveries by ship directly to Gaza through a pier operated by the international charity World Central Kitchen and a US military-run docking facility known as the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore system.

By late July 2024, aid groups pulled out of the project, ending a mission plagued by repeated weather and security problems that limited how much food and other emergency supplies could get to those in need.

Cypriot Foreign Ministry said Tuesday’s mission is led by the United Nations but is a coordinated effort — once offloaded at Ashdod, UN aid employees would arrange for the aid to be trucked to storage areas and food stations operated by the World Central Kitchen.

The charity, which was behind the first aid shipment to Gaza from Cyprus last year aboard a tug-towed barge, is widely trusted in the battered territory.

“The contribution of everyone involved is crucial and their commitment incredible,” Kombos said.

Shipborne deliveries can bring much larger quantities of aid than the air drops that several nations have recently made in Gaza.

The latest shipment comes a day after Hamas said it has accepted a new proposal from Arab mediators for a ceasefire. Israel has not approved the latest proposal so far.

Israel announced plans to reoccupy Gaza City and other heavily populated areas after ceasefire talks stalled last month, raising the possibility of a worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, which experts say is sliding into famine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin has dismissed reports of starvation in Gaza are “lies” promoted by Hamas. But the UN last week warned that starvation and malnutrition in the Palestinian territory are at their highest levels since the war began. 

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the Palestinian death toll from 22 months of war has passed 62,000.